DVDS
IRON MAN (2 XL Spuds)
TV
Knight Rider (DemoteD To 1.5 Spuds)
LIFE ON MARS (2 Spuds)
THE ELEVENTH HOUR (1.5 SPUDS)
THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (No Spud 4u)
LIFE (2 Spuds)
EASY MONEY (2 Spuds)
KNOW YOUR SPUDS
TWO XL SPUDS — Absolute Must See
TWO SPUDS — Definitely Worth Checking Out
1.5 SPUDS—Worth Checking Out, But Don’t Expect A Ton
ONE SPUD – Not Worth It, Except For The Hardcore Fan
NO SPUD 4U – Just Plain Sucks
I got on the Spudcycle to ride downtown for a client lunch today. For the first time in nearly 6 months, I was wearing clothing that actually covered up most of my body and I was still a little chilly. After a long summer of postponements and deferrals things are finally starting to get back on track. I am officially booked up the wazoo.
And that makes me happy. My old friend Denis Kane, who may or may not still be receiving this column used to say there were only two states of being for the entrepreneur. The state of worry over cash flow and the state of worry over time management, and that your work life would consist of a constant and irregular fluctuation between these two poles. I used to worry a lot when things were slow. But over the past few years, I have learned to accept that state of being as part of the natural, albeit irregular, rhythm of my working life. I no longer sweat through those periods, but instead work on the things that I don’t have time to work on when I am busy…like now. I spiff up my presentation materials, update my portfolio, scan old samples for posterity, paint the office, do my customary emailing to agencies and designcos who I don’t do much work for, but don’t want to lose touch with either, cause you never know. In short, I do a lot of spring cleaning in the summer.
One afternoon, I went over to John Wild’s place for tea and he was telling me that he uses his downtime to basically improve the value of his houses (he has two). He’s mastered the art of plumbing, carpentry and just about every other kind of handyman function you can imagine. He has skills. John is also interested in the market and pays a lot of attention to where his money is parked at any given time. I’ve known John since grade thirteen at Hillcrest High School in Ottawa. I sat beside him in home room and the very first thing he asked me is where I got my pants. I told him, AM&As in Buffalo and that started a conversation that led to a friendship that his endured on and off for nearly forty years. After I dropped out of college, I shared an apartment with John downtown, when he was starting his career in photography. John has a great career as a photographer. He’s made some of the best advertising images I have ever seen. I have been in some of John’s photo shoots (when I was a young wharthog) and have used him probably more than any other photographer in town for the stuff that I do. They say you can count your real friends on the fingers of one hand. I only have a few, but John is one of them for sure.
IRON MAN (2 XL SPUDS)
OK, this is the quintessential action adventure movie. It’s one of the best ever made and a lot of it has to do with the casting of Robert Downey Jr. in the role of Tony Stark. Downey is one of the best movie actors on the planet, because no matter what he does, there’s something about him that makes him just so damn believable. Granted this is a big budget-comic-book-munch popcorn-till-you’re-stuffed movie and so you expect it to look great. But Downey’s believability and vulnerability takes this genre up over a bar that’s at least a foot higher than anything that’s been done before. The other amazing thing about this film is that it was directed by Jon Favreau, who is much better known for borderline screwball comedies starring his buddy Vince Vaughn, than he is dealing with the high end CGI and high tech gizmology that was on display here. But the dude pulled it off in spades and now has a whole new wrinkle to his rep.
Iron Man was perfectly paced and plotted and beautifully set up for the sequel or series of sequels to come. But that did not, in any way, detract from the power and thrust of the original.
While it did not do as well as Spiderman in its box office grosses, things, as Bob Dylan says, have changed. Movie box office is down about 20% overall. But I don’t really care about all that stuff. What I do care about is that from the minute I started watching this movie until the very end, I was right there with it, amazed and enthralled and severely and sincerely entertained and you will be too. That’s a guarantee. If you don’t love this film, you are seriously brain damaged, and should seek professional help immediately.
THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE (NO SPUD 4U)
This was about as big a yawn as the presidential debate. Sarah Palin, who everybody, including me, expected to crash and burn, did not. But she had these bangs falling over her eye and one of them was causing her to blink all the time and all I could things was “Why the hell doesn’t she just push that damn hair out of the way because its distracting everybody from what she’s saying. Are Republicans really that dumb?” As it got worse I started to think that maybe she’s an idiot for not nudging that hair out of the way. Then, when she finally did push the hair out of the way and I started paying attention to what she was saying, I soon realized I was missing the distraction of the hair that was making her blink because, like all the politicians in this year’s race, she really has nothing to say. She did say she was a Maverick, however, like her buddy John McCain. I wonder if anybody ever showed Sarah Palin that footage with John McCain staring at her ass while she was making some speech. Hopefully not. Joe Byden seemed a little put up with the whole idea of having to debate with somebody from Alaska, so he was all patronizing and pissed off. If you watched the CNN broadcast of the debate, they have all this stuff going on that tells you was political journalists thought about who was winning or losing the debate. They also has a room full of schlubs sitting around in Columbus Ohio, with gizmos that were designed to show you just how they were reacting to what was going on, but I couldn’t figure that shit out to save my soul. And I sure don’t give a damn about what political journalists think. Journalists have become altogether too opinionated. They are supposed to be reporting the news, not trying to make it.
Anyway this debate was a whole lot of sound and fury (not so much), signifying nothing but that everybody knew how to answer questions without really answering them. Gee, do you think these people might have a future in politics?
I started off paying attention to this political race because of Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. But ever since Hilary got knocked out of the picture, things have gone downhill pretty fast. I can’t see how many Americans could muster up the energy to
keep on caring after these yawnfests. The bottom line…I miss Bill Clinton.
KNIGHT RIDER UPDATE—
DON’T JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER (DEMOTED TO 1.5 SPUDS)
Here’s a classic example of me getting seduced by a great pilot. The first two hours of Knight Rider were terrifically entertaining. Lots of technology, life and death stuff and character back stories. But that was then and this is now, and poor old Knight Rider wasted absolutely no time into falling back into a lot of bad TV habits. Namely cardboard villains, buxom babes in bikinis and plotting so stupid it makes you want to cry. The saddest thing of all is that if you watch shows like Fringe and NCIS, you see that they are working really hard to keep their edge and, in the process, keep us tuning in and entertained. I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I am. But who knew? Anyway, Knight Rider falls to 1.5 Spuds, pending on more viewing. If it’s as clichéd and superficial as this episode was, it falls right down to the dreaded take it or leave it.
LIFE (2 SPUDS)
After being cut off at the knees by the writer’s strike, Life is back.This is a quirky but very interesting police drama about an LA detective, Charlie Crews, (Damian Lewis) who gets wrongly accused of killing a family and is released after 12 years in the slam with 50,000,000 clams and his old job back. There is also a great ongoing subplot about Charlie’s obsession with finding out who actually did kill this family. So there’s actually two shows going on at once.
This is a fabulous series, and I’m not just saying that based on the pilot.We saw six episodes last season before it was shut down and fell in love with it. There is a lightness and fascination that certain actors bring to a part. A couple of them are Brits like Mr Lewis here and Hugh Lawrie (House). Their talent and magnetism elevates the show without making it seem top heavy and star driven.
Charlie’s character is true to the title in that Life for him means a whole new lease on it. He eats nothing but fresh fruit, has a zen-like attitude towards life and a finely tuned cop intuition. This all makes for entertaining as hell viewing each week and makes life one of big contenders for the Big Kahuna award next spring.
EASY MONEY (2 SPUDS)
IN A NUTSHELL: This family, in what looks to be Pheonix, runs a company called Pre$tige Loans, charging 25% interest per week and making a fortune off the misfortunes of other people.
PEDIGREE: Apparently some of the folks that had something to do with the Northern Exposure have something to do with this show. All that means nothing if the show is crappy and this show isn’t. The family is all pretty redneck, but the pilot episode I saw had some real intelligence to it and I look forward to following this show for as long as it lasts. Yeah I know…I said that about Knight Rider too. But I have a much better feeling about this show, because it relies on characters, not CGI effects.
FEARLESS FORECAST: Every show needs a good time slot. This show is currently running at 9:00 on Sunday night, up against Sunday night football and probably 24 when it kicks in November. I pray for it. But it just might be good enough to stay alive somewhere in US Cable land.
THE ELEVENTH HOUR (1.5 SPUDS)
IN A NUTSHELL: Rufus Sewell, another Brit plays some sort of big time scientist who is working for the FBI. He has an uber FBI babe partner who is supposed to keep him from getting killed as he uncovers the truth about crimes that normal FBI agents are evidently too harebrained to be able to handle.
PEDIGREE: This was adapted from a Brit series starring Patrick Stewart. That’s about all I could find out. FEARLESS FORECAST: In one of the reviews I read of the pilot somebody referred to it as ‘Fringe for Dummies’, and that’s a really good description. It was a bit plodding, like most shows that are about weird stuff. It seemed like it was trying to be an updated X-Files with a little CSI thrown in for good measure. In short, it felt like a show created by a focus group from Sandusky Ohio, who wanted something interesting but didn’t want to think too much. So what happens when you try to please the yahoos from Sandusky is that you completely alienate the people with more than a couple of brain cells to rub together. Maybe this show will get better, who knows? It did have a nice, rich, dark, brooding quality about it, like a lot of those movies you see that are about the devil coming back to earth to claim his throne. It also have the advantage of being on Thursday night and not up against anything special. But overall, I don’t think this show will make it till Xmas.
LIFE ON MARS (2 SPUDS)
IN A NUTSHELL: This cop named Sam Tyler, from the present is knocked back 35 years in time, and knows where he came from.
PEDIGREE: Like The Eleventh Hour, this show was also adapted from a Brit Series, which I tried watching but didn’t like very much.
FEARLESS FORECAST: This show has a terrific cast featuring Jason O’Mara, Gretchen Mol, Harvey Keitel and Michael Imperioli (The Sopranos). It’s got a fabulous look, and it feels a lot less like science fiction that I thought it would. Obviously the first episode has a lot of work to do, establishing the stories in two different eras and introducing a pretty big cast. I was prepared not to like this, because I wasn’t all that crazy about the British series, but I was pleasantly surprised. I hope this is a hit, ‘cause it’s good stuff. The best part of is that there’s a story line that bridges these two times, and it should be interesting to see how it plays out. Sadly though, shows like this don’t have a great track record with the CGI and ultra clever script addicted American audiences. But stranger things have happened.
That’s all I got for this issue. See have a great Thanksgiving. I’m personally giving thanks that I live here in Canada where the effects of the shit storm created by Wall Street greed won’t have quite the impact it will elsewhere. I hope.
